National Post (National Edition)
Finding Private Laubenstein
Dutchman comes across remains of lost Canadian soldier
Govert de Lorm was accustomed to finding objects with his metal detector along the banks of the Maas River near Sprang-Capelle, Netherlands. Army helmets, discarded mess tins, canteens and hand grenades — the river’s muddy banks absorbed all manner of military hardware during the battles fought there during the Second World War.
For de Lorm, a 35-year-old hobbyist with a passion for history, the place was a treasure trove. He had read a lot of books about the war as a kid. And he heard a lot of stories from his father, passed down from his grandfather, about the German occupation of the Netherlands and how the Canadians, and others, had fought and died to liberate his country.
“We never forget what these men have done,” de Lorm says from Woudrichem Noord-Brabant, the small riverside town where he lives.
Last June, he and a friend, Corné Leijtens, were out with their metal detectors, scanning an area near a public works project. Leijtens discovered a bone, protruding from the dirt. The pair often uncover animal remains. But this looked different. Human. So they started to dig, carefully clearing away soil, revealing a tibia, a fibula and a femur. Something else emerged from the earth: a silver signet ring, affixed with a gold letter “G.”
“We knew for sure that this was a soldier, but not which country he belonged to,” de Lorm says. “We knew we had to call the authorities.”
Last summer was a hectic period in Glen Laubenstein’s life. He was newly retired from his job as city manager of Fort McMurray, Alta. His wife’s mother had died. The couple were in the midst of relocating to Victoria, B.C. And then the phone rang. It was the Department of National Defence.
They had found his uncle Albert.
“It was shocking, obviously, but also shocking because what I had been told as a kid — and it’s amazing how stories change as they get passed down — was that Albert died three days after Normandy (June 1944),” Laubenstein says. “To learn that he was in Holland, and that he had made it to January 1945, was a complete shock.”
But a happy shock, says the dead soldier’s nephew, who was born after the war, and whose own father, George, a veteran, never spoke of the dead when he spoke of those years.
“Albert had been the older brother,” Laubenstein says. “My memories of him are of a photograph that my grandmother kept on her dresser. Albert was wearing a suit. He was tall, dark and handsome. “My aunt Martha used to tell me how the siblings would play together. But beyond that, I didn’t know much.”
The old photograph of Albert in a suit has since been lost. There are no letters, no diaries, no evidence that he left a sweetheart behind, and none among the living — both his siblings passed away years ago — with a direct connection to his life. And so in death, Uncle Albert had become an enduring family mystery; a soldier, buried in the mud, whereabouts unknown.
The Royal Netherlands Army secured the scene at the riverbank after the unidentified remains were found, and began a process of exhumation. They had the signet ring and, as they dug, other artifacts appeared — including a military ribbon and a Canadian Volunteer Service Medal — point- ing to the dead man’s nationality.
There was also a jawbone full of teeth, some of which had gold fillings, many of which showed extensive dental work. Back in those days, the Canadian army kept detailed dental records. Pte. Laubenstein was among three Canadians — Pte. Stanley Stokes and Pte. Lorne Watchorn being the others — killed in action near the Maas River on Jan. 26, 1945, whose remains were never accounted for.
The Dutch compared the old dental records. One matched.
“If you are trying to identify someone that has never had a filling, it’s very hard,” says Lt.-Col. Genevieve Bussiere, the Royal Canadian Dental Corps forensic odontology team leader. “I’m not saying Private Laubenstein had bad teeth, but ….” But his teeth led to the phone call to his nephew. The signet ring, meanwhile, belonged to Private Laubenstein’s father, whose first name was George. Glen Laubenstein plans on donating it to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
The uncle he never met will be buried May 6 at the Bergen-opZoom Canadian War Cemetery in Noord-Brabant, next to his regimental brothers. Laubenstein and his daughter, Sarah Penton, flew to the Netherlands Sunday. They have spent the past few days in a whirlwind, learn- ing about the military protocol involved in a funeral, learning of the country where Private Laubenstein was killed.
“I’ve been filling in a lot of blanks,” Laubenstein says.
Uncle Albert was born in Saskatoon, but raised in Edmonton. During the worst days of the Depression, he moved to B.C. He was working on a dairy farm when he enlisted in 1940. He was 26, and told recruiters that he wanted to be a career soldier. Initially assigned to an anti-aircraft unit, he transferred to an infantry outfit after D-Day. The decision put him on the front lines in the Netherlands.
Govert de Lorm plans on attending Wednesday’s funeral to “show respect for what Private Laubenstein did.” The area where his remains were discovered has since been flooded.
“Thank God we found him,” de Lorm says. “If not, he would never have been found.”
But he was, and his nephew has spent countless hours thinking about him, and about the world his own father grew up in, and the sacrifices Canadians made.
“There is a poem I grew up with in school with the line ‘ Lest we forget,’ but for me it is a case of remembering,” Laubenstein says. “Here’s a guy who had everything in the world to look forward to, and he was killed on a foggy riverbank in a part of the world he probably didn’t know existed before the war.”
His name was Private Albert Laubenstein. He was buried in the mud.
May he rest in peace.